Country diary: this familiar English tree has life in it yet

Goyt valley, Derbyshire: Wych elms have been pleasingly resilient to the fungal infection that has decimated populations across Europe, and this area boasts hundreds

My interest in elm trees was piqued this spring when someone happened to mention on social media that there were probably no more than 100 mature examples left in England.

This instantly had the whiff of urban legend because just that week I had chanced upon a grove of 19 wych elms in a lesser known part of the Derbyshire Dales national nature reserve called Hay Dale. Admittedly those few trees are a remnant of a much larger stand, which has, in turn, been ravaged by Dutch elm disease. It is this fungal infection that has devastated European and American elms, especially after the late 1960s, since when an estimated 25m have been killed in Britain alone.